Mass Circumcision

Shaun Raviv reports on male genital mutilation efforts in Swaziland, where just "under 20 percent of Swaziland’s 1 million people are HIV positive." The data is there that it can help stem HIV transmission, but, as always, there are unintended consequences:

Many Swazi men want to get circumcised, “but most of them for the wrong reason,” says Bheki Vilane, the national director of Marie Stopes Swazi land, a non-governmental organization performing circumcisions. He’s voicing the main concern about circumcision as an HIV-prevention strategy: will it make Swazi men even more sexually reckless than they are already? “Some of the men have the misconception that they’ll be 100 percent safe.” To dispel this myth, NGOs are ensuring that every patient goes through counseling before and after the procedure. Each man is told to use condoms, and also given the option to be tested for HIV, which about 85 percent agree to do.

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